I think MIL is realizing that no one is going to visit her because she’s been a terrible person to everyone her whole life.
I still feel bad, though she doesn’t deserve my sympathy. Still must be a hard reality knowing no one thinks highly of you enough to even come visit.
When she makes comments to me, I tell her to take it up with her family. Blood family that is.
I was only family to her when it was convenient or she was using me to get what she wanted. I feel no obligation or guilt to visit her.
This is more of just a rant. I wanted your thoughts on if you’ve experienced a toxic person complaining no one comes to visit them.
Basically what I’m saying to her is, I have no guilt or regret. I sleep good at night
Some folk get plenty of visitors yet are still the grump "they never stay long" etc
Other share jokes with staff & stories with other residents & are happy in their day.
Looking at one's life is the Last Task: one can look back with regret or pride.
i like that. i try to live my life, as much as i can, in an honorable way.
Sometimes when we start complaining about others, we really need to look at ourselves. Do we go out of our way to call or send a card? Sometimes we have to make the first move. If we have and get nothing back, then we have just except the other person is not interested and go on from there. Or, have we done something or said something to offend. I have a SIL that does not seem to care or realize that what she says is hurtful or condescending. I think she is working on that but after 40 yrs, I still wait for that shoe to fall.
She can't expect to be nasty and tell lies about people and then expect them to want to visit her. And like MJ said, even the nice ones have no visitors. By the time Mom was in AL I would say her Dementia was in the middle stages. She had no visitors not even her son who was retired by then. He may have seen her once. My cousin visited more often. She had been very involved in her church but no minister visited. No friends just me for a little while each day because I was 5 min away. I know, she had Dementia and people do not know how to deal with that. She did receive a card every month from two ladies who went to our church.
Keep to your boundries. But I would feel bad for her to but...she made her bed.
And I think there may be 10 people who would visit her, I'm not one.
She was miserable and nasty all her adult life and sent me packing several years ago.
As sad as I would feel that she has brought this on herself ( the loneliness and isolation) SHE BROUGHT IT ON HERSELF by being nasty and cutting to everyone but her daughter and her kids. No inlaws, no neighbors, nobody.
The other day my DH said "I am thinking we don't need a funeral when mom dies. It seems like such a waste of time. She hates everybody and has outlived all her family (sibs and such).
I said "Your call. I'm not 'allowed' to go anyway.
No dementia. Just a nasty person. When there is all this love surrounding her that she shoves away with both hands.
Keep in mind folks the Pandemic has made people afraid of visiting medical facilities--this Co-Vid thing doesn't seem to be going away. People are afraid of getting sick.
The Church people are faithful and consistent. Do you know how many people I visited in the family that weren't exactly my cup of tea but I did it anyway. I was sick and you visited me.
Depends on where you are coming from...I always showed up and checked on all the elderly. Life isn't even Steven. Are there some personalities that you get along with better than the others--absolutely.
There are also programs to adopt a grandchild. You have to work with what you have. I'm sure there are other residents who are in the same position. Can you find 1-2 other residents and introduce them?
All families are the same--the same personalities are in every workplace, neighborhood, etc.
I would call on the people at the facility. There must be an activity coordinator, etc. or chaplain. This is quite common. People are stretched today--couples are "both" working not like years ago where women were available to provide the caregiving.
I hope this helps. Loneliness is a terrible thing and should not be used as a punishment but dealt with so the person won't go into a severe depression.
I haven't spoken to her in 10 years, her brother 30 years, I do help behind the scenes and I am the front person for my step-mother. Brother handles the "B", I handle the one with the dementia.
No one but my brother even talks to her let alone visit. To all of us she died years ago. And, here is kicker, it doesn't bother her in the least.
Just my opinion …
By the time the individual who was unpleasant is in one of these places, it is too late. There is no way for them to be able to reach out to the family or friends they have/had, because they are either dead or have written the individual off. It is too late for the leopard to change its spots.
I know my MIL has no introspection on all the things she did for at least 25 years that made her son’s life miserable and mine a chore. Even after pleading for her to stop sending things we didn’t want, and I started selling, it took her son telling her that I put the item up for sale at work several times for her to stop.
I would have preferred short little trips, some nice activities or enjoyable outside action with the in-laws, but that was not to be. They could have met us at our beach vacation or gone with us on other vacations but they weren’t interested. The gift of time is better than the gift of things.
If these older folks didn’t have time for the younger people and be pleasant, why be visited when they are old.
Like OP MIL my parents were difficult but in old age we need to remember they do need companionship.
I hired someone to sit with my Mom two mornings a week and on those two days I stay home.
I did this for my father because I was his POA. I did not visit him very often in the nursing home. He didn't visit up very often when we were kids and really didn't pay much attention to any of us.
Go ahead and rant...................................it won't change anything, but you'll probably get some relief. Now, go make your own end-of-life plans, so no one has to rant about you.
Side note, fear of death keeps alive far longer than the suffering and agony is worth. I’ve seen this time and time again when I used to volunteer in a hospice in my 30’s. When my time comes, I’ll let go with ease and Grace as I 100% believe in the after life and meeting my maker.
It's sad when a caring, loving person who gave of their time to their family gets ignored in a nursing home.
If you want to visit her, know what you're doing it out of the kindness of your heart and God bless you for it. You don't owe her anything and if you don't visit her, think no more about it.
My ex never had anything to do with his daughter and she has a lot of his traits. He retired and told his fellow worker that he was going to spend the rest of his life in his recliner, drinking beer and watching TV. He died at 69 from CHF in his chair, with a pile if beer cans next to it watching TV. He could have had a different life if he had taken the time to know and be involved with his daughter but he chose to be alone.
My MIL believed that you got more bees with honey than vinegar. Must have been something her Mum (she was from London) drummed into her as a child when she was nasty. She used this honey thing when dealing with people and they thought she was the sweetest old lady. But wait till she didn't get her own way, NASTY. She also lied especially to get her out of situations she had gotten herself into because she lied. I got along with her but I never visited without my husband because of the lies she told him I said when I visited alone. In-laws moving 900 miles away was probably a good thing. One week or two a year was enough. Bad thing is my daughter lost out on knowing her grandfather. She was 4 when they left and 7 when he passed at the age of 71. If they had stayed her, she would have been close to him.
The following is a little bit off topic. I had two friends. The gentleman suffered from Alzheimer's and was in a SNF for twelve years. His wife, who did NOT possess a driver's license to operate a motor vehicle, visited him EVERY DAY for the twelve years. That equated to a total of 4,380 visits. I thought it to be extraordinary.
People who don't have driver's licenses or cars get to work every day, the grocery store, and bring up families. It's not extraordinary to have someone else driving you somewhere or getting on a bus or in a cab.
The woman you knew probably loved her husband. Or she was old herself and had nothing better to do during the day.
I knew a lot of elderly couples who couldn't stand each other. Then one gets placed in managed care. The other spends their days at the facility their spouse is in fighting with them.
My sister's MIL is on the path to no visitors. She is demanding and totally clueless about anyone else's time. She also speaks bad of others. She has done this for the last 25 years, its just worse now.
My mother has no visitors other than me. Her "friends" have all passed away. Her only living brother no longer drives, and my Mom was a bully to his wife. When one of my cousins visits her, she tells everyone that she doesn't know who she is and will tell them to go away and refuse to talk to her. There are days when I no longer want to visit her as she is argumentative, and hurls her verbal threats. So I then take a break from visiting her for a day or so, then I go at it again.
Thankfully, the facility brings in therapy dogs once a week and they encourage all the residents to get out of their room.
Do I feel sad? No. However, it has made me rethink about getting old.
The same thing happens to good, kind, loving people who lived their lives for their families (not in a guilt-trip, martyr way) and they get treated the same.
They're too needy and clingy. Or they smell gross and do disgusting things. Or their houses are hoarded with filth and squalor. So people don't visit. Or families get busy with their own lives and their kids and everything else.
Elderly time is very different than the time the rest of the world runs on. People have hard lives and very little free time these days. They don't want to spend their precious off time dealing with all the things I've stated.